


the thing about remembering

by duckmoles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Gaslighting, Gen, Human Experimentation, Multi, POV Second Person, this one's kind of weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: They tell you your name is Tony Stark. They tell you your name is Steve Rogers. They tell you your name, who you're supposed to be. What they're telling you is a lie.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> uh, idk how to tag this. so, be careful and be advised.  
> also this is not really written ahead of time, so look out for inconsistent updates.

The man who seems to be in charge is tall, with wide, wispy eyebrows and a cleanly shaven head. He speaks in a soft accent – from where, you can’t quite place. He makes you uncomfortable when he strokes your hand as he sticks a needle in your right arm – “Just need some blood samples, Tony. No need to be scared.” He rolls down the long sleeves when he’s done.

You aren’t scared.

The man urges you to look down, and so you do. He runs his hands over the back of your neck, fingers wet with some substance you can’t identify. “Careful, now,” he says. You feel the needle enter the back of your neck. A few moments later, the man pulls away and tells you that you can look up now.

He holds an empty syringe in his hand.

The man smiles at you, making you open your mouth so he can take a saliva sample. “You’re very quiet, aren’t you, Tony. Very unusual.” His assistant, a short woman with curling hair at her temples, scribbles on a yellow pad of paper. 

You say nothing to refute his point. It makes sense. You speak only when asked. There is little to say.

When they are done, they escort you back to your room. It’s a clean, 10x10 foot room, walls painted a bland white. There is a small toilet and a sink in one corner, your bed in the opposite corner.

“Stay here a while, alright?” the man asks, his hand on the small of your back. He leaves, speaking to his assistant in a soft tone.

You sit on the bed. There is little in the room, not even a desk or chair for you to sit at; just the bed and the makeshift bathroom. You fall asleep sitting up, but you’re jerked back to consciousness by the man tugging you awake.

“I have something for you, Tony,” he says. “Up, up.”

You stand and follow him as he leads you through the winding hallways – right, left, left, right, door at the end of the hall – to a room you don’t remember ever being in. The room’s walls are painted a bright blue, and there’s a wooden table in the center of the room with a box on it. You sit in the blue plastic chair as guided by the man.

“Alright,” he says. “I’m going to leave you here for a while. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He leaves. You sit in silence for a long time. The box sits in front of you, made of whorled wood, brown and polished. It doesn't look to have any visible latches or ways to open it. You think the man should have been back by now, but the seconds tick by and he doesn’t seem to be coming. You fall asleep in the chair.

When he comes back and wakes you up, he has a tight look to his face, his mouth thin and eyes strained. “You did well,” he says, though his voice betrays his true thoughts. He wears a thin green polo shirt, stained slightly at the armpits with sweat. You think that this was a test. You think that you might’ve just failed.

He skims his hand over your back and shoulders. You stand, abruptly. It seems like the right thing to do.

The man stumbles back. He looks afraid, suddenly. “Tony,” he says. “Come. We’re going back to your room.” He leaves. You follow.

It goes on.

 

 

You dream of the cold, and you wake up shivering. You lie awake at night when you wake up until the man comes in and wakes you, takes samples from your body, asks you to do things you can’t understand.

This time, you can feel your heart beating steadily in your chest. You count the beats – one, two, three – and the rhythm almost lulls you back to sleep (almost. You catch yourself each time.).

You hear the man walking down the hall, boots echoing slightly against the linoleum floor, before he opens the door.

“Good morning,” he says. The lights in the room flicker on.

You sit up. The man has been wearing the same green shirt for as long as you’ve known him. Sweat beads on his forehead.

When he leads you to the medical room this time, he straps you down. A rush of violence runs through you at this – you want to rise up, punch him into the floor, run from this facility into the bright, clean air – but it fades away just as quickly.

“We’re going to do something different today,” he says, patting your left arm nervously. “Be good for me.”

He steps back, and three people walk into the room, dressed in black riot gear and holding guns.

You surge up. The straps snap, the man stumbles back into a corner of the room, and you lunge towards the first of the new people. They’re well-trained; the first dodges you smoothly, but you catch the second with a fist to the jaw.

“Doctor,” one of them says, voice low.

You knee the first in the groin as he comes near, spinning around to block the second’s blow.

“Don’t shoot!” the man yells. “Don’t shoot!”

Too late; the first crack of gunfire echoes in the small room. The man falls onto the floor and clutches at his ears, screaming, “Fuck! Fuck!”

You catch the first with an elbow to the gut, and he stumbles back, gasping. You kick him for good measure, and that’s when the second hits you with the butt of the gun in the back of your knees. You stumble but catch your footing, spinning around.

Where’s the third?

The third hits you in the back of your head with a gun, and you go down on one knee. You start to climb to your feet, but you’re weak, weak, and the second and third gang up on you.

In a minute, you’re on the floor, and there’s a needle sliding into your neck. Your muscles slacken. Before you pass out completely, you can see the man leaning over you.

The man frowns, his eyebrows coming together in frustration. He opens his mouth, as if to speak.

Another moment, and the world goes dark.


	2. Chapter 2

When you open your eyes, you see a bland, beige-colored ceiling above you. You flex the fingers of your right hand, bunching up fabric. You’re on the bed, the pillow stiff beneath your head. You heft yourself out of the bed and to your feet. You’re dressed in a thin grey sweatshirt and linen pants that stop just above your ankles.   

The door to the room – large, metal – cracks open with a high squeak, and you scrabble for a weapon, anything that could help you defend yourself. You grab the pillow.

A man walks into the room. He wears glasses and a green shirt, slightly stained.

“Good morning,” he says pleasantly in an accent you can’t identify.

“Who are you?” you ask, or try to ask. Instead, the sound comes out garbled, sharper and harsher. You can’t quite explain away the way your heart rate picks up, the blood thumping through your body hard and direct.

His eyes widen and his fists clench tight on the stack of papers he holds. He steps back. He smiles kindly.

You narrow your eyes and stand to your full height. He’s a little taller to you, but he shrinks back against the doorway.

“If you would calm down,” he says, “I’ll explain everything to you.”

You stare at him. Sweat beads up at his forehead. His left eye twitches, minutely. You sit down.

He looks down at the first sheet of paper, takes it, and sets it on your lap.

“That’s you,” he says, “from when we first found you.”

You look down at the man staring out from the page, his blood-splattered hair and face, eyes closed in pain. You wish you had a mirror to verify what you look like.

When you look back up at the man, the smile hasn’t faded. “Can you tell me who you are?” he asks.

You reach for the name – it starts with a T or an S or something else – and then it’s gone. You shake your head slowly.

He shakes his head sadly. “Well, that’s our worst fears confirmed,” he says. “You seem to be suffering from amnesia.” He hands you another sheet of paper, this one with a short fact sheet about you on top, listing basic information: your height, weight, eye color, hair color.

You trace the name at the top with the fingers of your left hand. They catch the light and reflect them back into your eyes.

He sits beside you and places his hand on your right hand. “Your name is Steve,” he says, gesturing to the paper. “Steve Rogers.” 

 

The man tells you that they don’t know much about you other than your name, but he shows you the blood tests and the results of the physical they had conducted while you were still unconscious. He says that they’ll have to run a few more tests on you to verify your physical condition, and then try and help you restore your memory.

“It’s important to stay optimistic about these things,” he says.

You try to speak again, but you find that you can’t. Your tongue feels glued to the bottom of your mouth and you can’t muster the strength in order to talk.

His lips purse together. He says, “We’re here to help.”

A beeping sound comes from one of his pockets. He blinks rapidly and takes a small pager out of the left pocket of his lab coat. “Alright,” he says once he puts it away. “Since you’re up and ready, Steve, we can start evaluating you.”

He stands, and you stand with him. He leaves, and you follow.

The hallways are empty and your bare feet feel cold against the linoleum floor. The man – doctor, maybe – wears shoes that echo around the halls. You pass a baker’s dozen of doors and turn right and then left before you reach your destination, a sterile, door-less room labeled “EXAMINATION.” Inside looks like a standard doctor’s office, from what you remember of them – a table on which you can lie or sit down on, an assortment of equipment on one table.

“Lie down,” he says, gesturing to the table. “Face the floor.”

The paper crinkles as you crawl onto the table.

“Now,” he says, moving around with a soft shuffle. You can’t quite see what he’s doing, but you can see him moving in your peripheral. “Now I’m going to pull your pants down so I can inject something. It’ll help, see? Feel free to tell me if you feel uncomfortable.”

The man pats your thigh. With one swift movement, he pulls down the linen pants so that your bare skin is exposed to the cool air of the room. He swabs your left buttock with alcohol, the smell pungent. You close your eyes.

You have a feeling that the calm, careful detachment you feel is wrong somehow, but you can’t pick out why. The man said he’s going to help. He’s going to help. You’re going to get your memories back because he’s going to help you.

“There’s going to be a slight bit of pain,” the man says as he sticks the needle into your skin. The pain barely registers in your brain.

“Just like that, Steve. You’re doing very well.”

The man steps back and disposes the needle in a trash chute. He puts a bandage on the injection spot and tells you that you can get back up and that he’ll leave you in here for a little bit while he checks on something.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, you get to your feet, pulling your pants back up. You feel groggy, your bones lead in your body. You want to sleep. You’re so tired, your eyes heavy-lidded and your muscles aching. You sit back down.

An indeterminate amount of time later, the man walks back in and ushers you to your feet. “Good boy,” he praises as he helps you out of the room. He’s surprisingly strong.

He leads you into what looks like a gym. There’s three treadmills against one wall, an exercise bike, a series of dumbbells, barbells, a punching bag, and a rowing machine. The floor and walls are matted, with a cleared area in the center of the room.

“We want to see your capabilities,” the man explains, guiding you to a treadmill. He helps you step on. When he lets go of your arm, you grab onto the handholds of the treadmill instead.

With a soft beeping noise, he turns the treadmill on and watches you as you slowly start to move your feet. You manage to stay upright for a minute before you collapse onto the floor.

There’s a yell of surprise from the man as he rushes to turn the treadmill off.

You close your eyes.

He curses softly as he presses his fingers against your neck. He must be checking your pulse.

You drift as he runs out of the room, yelling. You wonder what he’s saying.


End file.
